Best Non-Piccolo or Spoleto Play of 2015

Grey Gardens

Readers Pick

Last year, the Village Repertory Co. took on the 1975 documentary film Grey Gardens, in which Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, go from riches to rags. Staged at Woolfe Street Playhouse, the movie-turned-musical turned out to be both humorous and poignant, colored immensely by the performance of lead actress Becca Anderson as both Big and Little Edie. The storyline is bizarre enough to give it a great stage presence, but the music really made it shine, which included the strong voices of Anderson as well as Caroline Connell (also as Little Edie), Matthew Walker as Joe Kennedy, and Aaron Hancock as live-in pianist George Gould Strong. Looks like we’re not the only ones who adored this true story, however embellished, of such a dramatic fall from grace.